Monday, May 11, 2009

cookies, 2.0

My second batch in two weeks! I'm starting to warm up to this baking thing. A little. Mostly, I think, because of the advent of the hand mixer. Whenever I tried to make cookies in high school and college, I was trying to mix everything by hand with a whisk, which made that "cream butter and sugar" direction that starts so many cookie recipes seem impossible. So it's nice to have mastered the art of plugging something in and letting it do the mixin'.

It's kind of pleasantly weird, really. Being used to mixing stuff by hand, it almost seems magical to just sort of...hold the mixer and pivot it around in the bowl and watch some flour and eggs and butter and sugar turn into dough. And then later on, the dough bakes and turns into cookies! My mom has been extolling the semi-magical virtues of cooking to me forever, so maybe I'm catching on.

I actually haven't eaten any of this batch of cookies, since they were a Mother's Day present and made with cranberries, of which I am not a fan. I also baked them for longer than I would have liked them baked, since my mom likes everything super-crispy. (Which is the reason I thought I didn't like toast for years and years. I don't think I knew toasters had a "light" setting until I was in college. But they do, and it is delicious.)

I don't know what's up with all the food talk recently, but I'm not even done with it. This Thursday is the season finale of Supernatural, which always requires some kind of faintly thematic dessert. Last year, we did I Sold My Soul For You pudding-and-cherries parfait. (The cherries represented love. And blood.) This year, I want to create something that will possibly be called "Narratively Ineffective Apocalypse Cake [or possibly pie]." I think it's going to involve meringue.